Mark 3:28-29

[jack]

Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.

Ooh, controversial.

It's understandable that Jesus is angry here. The teachers of the law are supposed to be a moral and theological authority, and having just seen the holy spirit heal someone, are accusing it of being a demon. If Jesus is right, it's clear why that's some nasty blasphemy.

On the one hand, I think it's understandable if Jesus spoke with vehemence over precision here (and in other places). Words are always imperfect: being imprecise (especially as a moral authority) is bad, but it's not always the MOST bad thing. For the usual analogy consider a parent and a child. If the child tried to have the parent cast out for being a demon, I think it would be entirely reasonable for the parent to say that was unforgivable, even if it was still possible, though unlikely, to reconcile later.

On the other hand, even if we take a fluffy Jesus-was-a-nice-guy-even-if-he-wasn't-God viewpoint, it's easy to get sucked into contorted explanations of why he was ALWAYS right, and gloss over things he said that might be bad as a moral example nowadays (whether or not there was a good reason for saying them).

From a theological standpoint, if you take forgiveness-by-God literally, is there a standard interpretation of this passage?

If you take Jesus-died-for-our-sins literally, does that only apply to people who died after Jesus? Were there things which were previously unforgivable sins which became forgiveable with Jesus' sacrifice -- either specific really bad ones like blaspheming against the holy spirit, or as some people would say, ALL sins? Or was forgiveness via God's grace available before Jesus' death, just very rare?

Comments

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I'm not aware of a standard interpretation ("Let's just not talk about this one very often" isn't really an interpretation! :) ) although that doesn't mean there isn't one. I have heard it talked about in a sort of "to blaspheme against the holy spirit is to be so actively hostile that if you're worrying about whether you've committed an eternal sin against the holy spirit you haven't" kind of spin, which at least seems to be a first-do-no-harm approach?

I think the "did Jesus die for only the sins of people who died after he did" thing is potentially interesting although mostly in terms of pedantry, because I am interested in pedantry. On the other hand, pedantry is probably a really bad way to try and wrap up all loose ends of faith-based questions. But anyway. There are passages that imply that between death and resurrection Jesus went and visited Sheol, and possibly therefore redeemed people who died before him while there? Not sure.

Ooh, I'm not sure about the idea of previously unforgivable sins which became forgiveable with Jesus' death, that's a new idea to me (but interesting!). The general line I've heard is usually that previous sins were atoned by by animal death but animal death wasn't really good enough and it was sort of foreshadowing for the ultimate sacrifice. But Christians have a bad habit of viewing everything as foreshadowing for Jesus.

[jack]

mostly in terms of pedantry, because I am interested in pedantry

ROFL! Yeah, that :)

On the one hand, I am interested in how the theology is interpreted.

On the other hand, if it's actually true, I agree the edge cases are probably not the important thing, because (a) likely God can clean stuff up in a just way that's not automatically spelled out in detail in advance and (b) there probably will in fact be messy edge cases which we don't really like, and just have to put up with.